CMLL (TUE) 01/31/2017 Arena México [CMLL, Plantilla Deportiva, SuperLuchas]
1) Magia Blanca & Sangre Imperial DQ El Coyote & Grako 
Tecnicos took 2/3, the last when Coyote unmasked Sangre Imperial
2) Arkángel de la Muerte, Metálico, Sangre Azteca b Flyer, Robin, Sensei
Rudos took 1/3.
3) Tritón b Raziel [lightning]
Triton won with the 450 splash
4) La Jarochita, Marcela, Princesa Sugehit b La Metálica, Reyna Isis, Tiffany
tecnicas took 1/3
5) Negro Casas, Puma, Tiger b Blue Panther, Blue Panther Jr., The Panther
Casas family took 2/3. Money thrown in.
6) Carístico, Stuka Jr., Valiente DQ Euforia, Rey Bucanero, Último Guerrero
Bucanero unmasked Stuka again for the DQ.
CultIcon says Panther/Casas and Triton/Raziel are the matches to watch, and everything else is worth avoiding.
Lucha Underground Season 3 will return on May 31st. Lucha Underground posted the date on it’s social media. A press release is probably coming soon. The season, barring anything also weird happening, will run until October 18th. I’d suspect that means the other new programming for El Rey is expected to be ready around that time. May 31st is a long way away, but pretty good considering where summer 2017 could’ve turned out.
In the meantime, El Rey will continue to air repeats in the meantime. They’ll be airing 19 weeks of repeats, which is exactly how many new episodes they aired. That might be how they figured out the length of the break. If we really want to overextend that thought out to guess at the future: there’s 21 episodes left in the season, and a 21 week break after would put Season 4 starting on March 14th, 2018. That’s a real long shot, but it does kind of fit with December or January tapings.
Court Bauer, on MLW Radio, says Lucha Underground will be coming to Netflix on February 15th. Seasons 1 and 2 will be made available for “North America and parts of South America”, with options for future seasons. The show will continue to air first on El Rey. The discussion starts about 49 minutes in.
It’s not said which exact countries are included. Mexico wasn’t named checked and would be a big deal. (Mexico is part of North America on on a map, but usually not for distribution.) It would not seem to include the UK or any other European market. Netflix usually adds full seasons at a time, Season 3 normally wouldn’t be added until some period of time after the final. I was surprised by the solidness of this news; there’s a cottage industry of websites that track what’s coming to Netflix in the next month, and none of them have been mentioning Lucha Underground. Bauer usually knows what he’s talking about there. Perhaps it’s a recent deal or LU is small enough to go unnoticed in those. LU being on Netflix is nice for people who haven’t checked out the show and want to marathon, but it’s bigger positive message for the state of show. A Netflix deal isn’t likely to pay for S4 itself, but it’s a sign of forward progress which hasn’t been seen in many months.
Lucha Underground repeats tonight are “Trios Champions” and “Fight to the Death” (Fenix/Mil Muertes death match). If you’re on Spectrum, you probably won’t be able to see either of them tonight (or Blue Demon). Univision pulled off all it’s affiliated channels (including Unimas & El Rey) last night in a rate dispute. El Rey is a small fish in the bigger issue. I can’t imagine this will go too long with Univision being involved, that’s too many viewers displaced to stay that way. In the meantime, at least those viewers aren’t missing new episodes.
Solowrestling has a good 25 minute (English language) interview with Ricochet about a variety of topics. Of note to Lucha Underground, Ricochet says he’s no longer under contract, but under a no-compete until Season 3 finishes airing (which comes up in the context of him appearing in ROH this year. He’d like to if it was possible.) Ricochet earlier says anything is an option, and “I know where I want to go, and I know what I need to be to get there.” It sounds like he’s trying to get himself in position for the best WWE deal possible when it becomes open to him again. There’s nothing ruling him out out from working a LU live shows, if such a thing were to exist, but he seems highly unlikely to sign anything long (or even short) term that’ll keep him from getting where he wants to go.
+LuchaTV’s latest podcast had Pirata Morgan & Hijo del Fantasma. Pirata was his usual mean old man self, claiming he’s blackballed from CMLL because he used to beat up the guys who are now in charge of booking, those guys got their revenge with how they booked him and others and he can’t stand to take orders from them. I’d suggest he isn’t being used because he’s not very good at this point in his career, but Mascara 2000 is in main events every week so that can’t be it.
The Fantasma interview is more relevant to the Lucha Underground talk today. He wasn’t on any of the Season 3 Part 1 episodes. Fatnasma seemed to be having problems with AAA & LU during that period, but also had back surgery last year and back surgery isn’t something you do just to sit out – it wasn’t clear how much each issue contributed to him Fantasma not being around. Fantasma revealed he renegotiated his deal with LU last year, and (now?) has a legal duty to AAA/LU, which he feels the other guys should’ve honored as well. There’s initial LU deals were said to be not good terms for the wrestlers who signed them; I wonder if Fantasma questioned those terms as a way of trying to get out of the deal, and both sides eventually reached a fairer agreement. AAA & LU don’t seem to redo those deals on their own.
The podcast also explains why one match got changed on the Lucha Memes show: Ronnie Mendoza was late getting to Arena Naucalpan due to an accident on the highway, so Laredo (wrestling sick) got moved to the match with Arez instead and Ronnie was in a three way. The VOD deal for that show was supposed to be up by yesterday, but has yet to turn up as far as of when I’m writing about this. I’m still not sure which of those two matches will be part of the package.
Alberto el Patron mentioned he’d be part of a new promotion, Distromania, on May 21st. He hypes ex-WWE wrestlers and his brother-in-laws the UK Hooligans for the show. Like the Octagon “Legado Dragon” show last weekend, this appears to be a Tinieblas Jr.’s FULL show underneath the surface, with Octagon/Alberto’s name on top (and maybe responsible for bringing in some of the top names.) The Legado Dragon show seems like it drew well, so maybe Tinieblas has found a business model in vanity promotions.
REINA mentions Keira winning the CMLL-REINA International Junior championship. No trip to Japan to defend the title is mentioned quite yet, but the photo of Keira with the belt and her small child is cute.
Aerostar took a photo of a full Arena Aficion last night, where there was an AAA house show last night. That’s more impressive given that arena seems like a hard place to draw.
Today in random AAA controversies which will be quickly forgotten: Psycho Clown got angry with a reporter asking him questions about Dr. Wagner. (I didn’t even watch the clip, but it’s interesting to see Adictos al Deportes suddenly pop back to life with a few bad news for AAA articles.) Meanwhile, Arturo Rivera is betting La Rebelion will last “a month and a half” without TV before people lose interest in them. He also hints someone (Garza Jr.) used the plane ticket AAA gave him for the Toluca show to instead of work the Arena San Juan show. Garza Jr. posted a photo of the plane ticket he bought himself in the comments. Alfredo found all of this.
Sorpresa es Lucha returns to talk about the exit from AAA and the Crash show with TKD.
CMLL has a short bio of Villano III, prior to him being honored on March 17th.
Pro Wrestling Super Blog has the top 10 lucha matches of January. The top two matches are good ones that have hardly been mentioned here.
LuchaWorld has the latest news update.
Lineup
CMLL (TUE) 02/07/2017 Arena México
1) Acero & Aéreo vs Pequeño Nitro & Pequeño Olímpico
2) Oro Jr., Pegasso, Starman vs Canelo Casas, Hijo del Signo, Metálico
3) Blue Panther Jr., Stigma, The Panther vs Sagrado, Skándalo, Virus
4) Drone, Guerrero Maya Jr., Johnny Idol vs Hechicero, Misterioso Jr., Vangellys
5) Stuka Jr. vs Rey Bucanero
6) Carístico, Máximo Sexy, Volador Jr. vs Felino, Negro Casas, Último Guerrero
Rey Bucanero tried really hard in his last two singles matches so maybe this will work. It’s a lot of OK matches. Second match has the first Starman match here in October. He was on the Toryumon show this weekend. Maybe he’s been gone with an injury that’s finally healed?
CMLL (TUE) 02/07/2017 Arena Coliseo Guadalajara
1) Javier Cruz Jr. & Metatrón vs Mr. Trueno & Rey Trueno
2) Explosivo, Magia Blanca, Robin vs Difunto, El Coyote, Grako
3) Rey Cometa, Stuka Jr., Tritón vs Bobby Z, Dragón Rojo Jr., Pólvora
4) Diamante Azul, Marco Corleone, Valiente vs La Máscara, Pierroth, Rush
5) Ephesto, Luciferno, Mephisto © vs Ángel de Oro, Atlantis, Titán [MEX TRIOS]
9th defense
Someone else getting a trios title chance before the Casas family is not a big surprise. I’d be fine with a title change – Puma & Tiger are Angel de Oro’s best opponents and Atlantis & Titan would make for a good trios title match. The Diamante/Pierroth feud comes here and the tercera should be fun as well, though it probably won’t have Stuka.
I didn’t pick up on it Sunday, but Difunto is a new name here (unless it’s the old Monterrey guy making an unlikely move.)